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Webkinz the next Beanie Babies?April 6th, 2007 |
The Globe & Mail thinks so. Kind of startling to think — I hadn’t really considered the collectible aspect that much. Beanie Babies with an online world…
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Wicked combo - real toys, collectibles, virtual world - plush Magic: The Gathering. We’ve seen a couple of variants on this and I’m guessing we are going to see a lot more. This is a very significant trend.
@Raph,
Reverse engineer this, recall all those MMOG players that collected rare and unique items for display (SWG, UO). Now what if the player got a rare/unique item in game…..and then got one in the mail!!! 
Your OpenGL/Resin model post from…like 9 months ago(?) comes to mind…
Imagine what will happen when you can create your own custom character, then have the toy manufacturer create that toy on demand? You take your Bratz/MMO character - dress it up and buy accessories, then the toy manufacturer custom “print”’s that doll for you. Like the lego concept. Seems like we could be very close to that: http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/08/color_3d_prints_print_world_of.html
Now what if the player got a rare/unique item in game…..and then got one in the mail!!!
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Our link is courtesy of Raph Koster, who is also tracking the Webkinz craze, and who admits he didn’t consider the collectability of the plush dolls. There has been a secondary market on eBay and Amazon for some time. The dolls are fragile, only surface washable. This may contribute to their long-term scarcity, and reinforce their collectablility. I wonder what will happen when the accounts change
[...] methodologies that aren’t even from software development, let alone games. Raph spends almost as much time talking about recent web developments and broader media topics as he does MMOs. I suspect that [...]